


An exercise in guilt.

by Accal1a



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:05:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle for Mount Weather is over, not everyone survives.</p><p>Jasper can't cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An exercise in guilt.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is DARK. 
> 
> There is an MFT of angst in this. It may potentially be triggering and I hope you read only if you know you are safe enough to do so.
> 
> This was written as a result of a tumblr post which an anonymous someone wrote saying that the boys couldn't cope if the other died.

It was a bloodbath.

Afterwards, Jasper would wonder how he managed to get through it. He'd never been athletic and he certainly didn't have a lot of strength but somehow, through the hail of bullets and the swinging of all of the makeshift weapons, he had survived.

He still didn't know whether he was one of the lucky ones or not.

After the battle was over, he looked around to check whether they had won. He assumed they had because otherwise he'd have been shepherded back to some sort of confinement and no-one was doing that. For the first time in what seemed like a long time he was free from imprisonment.

An anguished wail broke him out of his musings and he turned around to see where it had come from. People were dropping to their knees all over the room, cradling loved ones who had gone or whispering encouragement and pressing hard down on wounds. Jasper knew that half of them wouldn't make it and his heart clenched.

He started to pick his way across the room, stepping over mountain men and ark survivors alike. Faces of his friends swam before him as he took in the scene.

It was towards the back of the hall that he found Monty. He was lying very still and he had a serene expression on his face. If it weren't for the blossoming blood on a wound in his torso, Jasper could have convinced himself that his friend was sleeping. As it was, he knew no-one who had a pool of blood around him as large as Monty's could live. He didn't need any of Clarke's medical training to know that.

His legs must have given way at some point because he realised later that he was on the floor, staring at his friend. Wondering how it all went so wrong. Monty was the best of them, the best of him and he was gone. His life snuffed out even as Jasper had been fighting for his own.

He didn't know when they'd got separated but in the fight everything had been jumbled and everyone was just trying to stay alive as much as they could. Still, he should have been there. Should have done something to stop this tragedy. He'd sworn that he would keep his friend safe and he'd failed.

He found himself wondering how many people he had killed, how many people had died because of him, either directly by his hand or indirectly by his actions.

Absently, he drew up his sleeve and stared at the unmarred flesh of his forearm. The deaths needed to be accounted for, they needed to be atoned for. 

He picked up a knife from the floor. There were weapons everywhere. It didn't matter where it had come from.

Carefully and with precision he cut into the milky flesh.

Shallow cuts, barely bleeding for those deaths which he had caused but had been fighting for his life at the time. Deaths which were a necessity in order to survive. There were a lot of these cuts and he wasn’t sure on the numbers but it didn't matter, it was merely a representation of his sin.

Deeper cuts which bled slightly more for the grounder deaths on the bridge, deaths he had caused but which were more calculated than fighting for his life. Deaths which were again a necessity to save people but which it had been Jasper’s job to mete out.

There were a couple of even deeper cuts to represent the guard who he'd stabbed in the back with an axe and Cage, who he'd shot at point blank range in the command centre. These were deaths that were necessary but that he'd enjoyed. Deaths which made sense but were also fueling the madness he sometimes felt inside. Deaths which were delivered by passion.

At the end of the long line, two thirds of the way down his forearm, he dug the knife into his arm and caused a cut which gaped open. The maw of the wound instantly filled with blood, but not before Jasper saw globules of fat deep in the wound. The blood ran like tears down his arm and yet he did not cry. This cut was for Monty, the boy whom he should have saved. This was a direct kill as much as any of them had been. He had failed and his failure was now clearly shown.

He pulled his sleeve down, ignoring the instant wet feeling it generated and stood up. Towering over his best friend and looking down at him one last time. He didn't deserve to be in his presence, didn't deserve to even look at him any more.

~~~

He kept to himself mostly after that.

They'd taken Mount Weather and they lived in the safety of it's walls. Radiation not being a problem they were able to leave as and when they wanted. It was a nice feeling to know they were no longer penned in.

Grounders were no longer a problem.

He had garnered from whispered conversations in hallways that the alliance had somehow failed but no one seemed to know the whole story. There must have been some sort of truce because they rarely saw them and when they did they were not hostile.

It seemed peace had come to the Earth for the first time in nearly a hundred years.

Jasper couldn't find any peace.

He walked the halls, sometimes even venturing outside to walk. He spoke very little when he had any human interaction at all - which was normally only at mealtimes, still delivered in a giant hall with long tables.

Miller and Harper had tried to get him to spend time with them and talk but it just reminded Jasper of when the four of them were planning to escape this place and he couldn't bring himself to stay in their company.

Maya tried her best - newly cured due to a willing bone marrow doner, done humanely and with no fear. She walked with him, attempted to get him to engage but her actions went unheeded. Eventually she drifted away.

He hated the mountain but also couldn't leave. Although he had walked away from Monty and refused to attend his funeral, he didn't want to walk too far away lest his guilt be assuaged completely.

~~~

A year after the battle, a celebration was held, with cake and speeches. It was both a joyous and somber affair and Jasper attended for the requisite amount of time and then slowly walked back to his room.

No one stopped him anymore, just looked at him with sad eyes. He wanted to scream at them sometimes. Didn't they know what he had done? Couldn't they see that he was a monster?

Clarke was the worst. She spent time with him, often walking along beside him and prattling about all that was going on in the mountain. People had started to gain hope and were planning for a future. Some couples were having babies and her own mother was due to marry Marcus Kane in a few days time. He was invited, if he felt up to it.

~~~

It was the third year after the battle. 

There had been several more weddings and a few new babies. Clarke had stopped spending much time with him, she was busy with the running of the place he supposed, busy organising things for a trip to the fabled City of Light. Jasper thought they were all just making busy work.

~~~

By year five the walls were starting to close in and Jasper was spending longer and longer outside. On one of his many walks he accidently came across the dropship. It's hulk looming out of the forest like the alien thing it was.

He stepped inside and saw parts of the forest reclaiming it for it's own. There were small trees growing and moss underfoot. He wondered how long it would be until it was unrecognisable. He sat there for a while, lost in memories and regret.

When he started back, he walked looking at his arm, the long healed scars seeming to taunt him. He would pull his gaze away only to find it returning time and again, his shame drawing him in like a magnet. His gaze falling back to that part of his body which he felt was more a part of him than any other.

It wasn't really a conscious decision. 

He walked the halls of the bunker as he always did and found himself in that hall. It was disused. Someone somewhere had presumably decided that it was too painful. He didn't mind, it seemed even quieter in here than it did elsewhere and he felt something akin to peace rest over him.

He walked across the room, his feet leaving marks in the dust. 

Oddly enough, although the bodies had been removed, all of the makeshift weapons had been left, as if knowing their owners had no further use for them. Jasper thought they looked sad.

Finding the spot was not difficult at all. He had visualised it in his wakings and sleepings for five long years. It was by a wall so he carefully slid down it, throwing dust into the air as he did so. It made him sneeze and the echo seemed to cut out too soon as if it too knew that this tomb was to be silent.

He picked up the now dusty knife and studied it for a moment. There was still a dull red attached to the blade, his blood. It seemed such a long time ago that he had marked himself and he was so very tired.

Pulling up both his sleeves this time, he placed the knife on his wrist and, without hesitation, pressed down as hard as he could. The knife, though old, seemed to have retained it's blade. It bit into his arm and rewarded him with a mass of red which seemed to pulse as it gushed out of him. 

Moving to his second wrist was harder than he thought it would be. His trousers legs were already soaked with blood and his hand did not seem to be operating properly. The second cut was less deep but he didn't think it would matter. He could already feel his life ebbing away and a feeling of serenity passed over him.

His vision was starting to fray at the edges but he thought he heard Clarke shouting his name, screaming words at him which he couldn't seem to understand. There was pressure at his wrists and he idly wondered what people were doing, why there was so much panic, everything was actually okay for the first time in a long time.

Clarke was in his face now, crying, and he wanted to tell her that it was okay, that this was right, that he was right where he should be but he didn't seem to have the energy to do so.

Just before his eyes closed for the final time, he thought he saw Monty in the crowd that had formed. Peering over the shoulders of Miller and Harper who seemed to be holding hands, their faces masks of shock.

Jasper smiled at seeing his friend for the first time in five long years. He felt, rather than saw, the last pulse of blood come out of his left wrist and then there was only him and Monty.

As it should be.


End file.
